As evening comes, someone calls the speaker in for supper. He has been planting beans and peas, mixing the seeds among fallen apple blossoms. He half-jokes that if he doesn’t stop now, his companion may catch his obsession—a “springtime passion for the earth.” Planting here feels tender and quietly intense, almost like love or childbirth. The act of putting seed in soil burns through a person, followed by the long watching and waiting for the first shoots. The final image of a seedling arching up and shouldering off dirt gives the ending a sense of hard-won new life. The mood is warm, earthy, and absorbed, turning ordinary garden work into something intimate and quietly thrilling.
Putting in the Seed — Summary
You come to fetch me from my work to-night When supper’s on the table, and we’ll see If I can leave off burying the white Soft petals fallen from the apple tree (Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite, Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;) And go along with you ere you lose sight Of what you came for and become like me, Slave to a springtime passion for the earth. How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed On through the watching for that early birth When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.